Patchwork Communication
by Shiggity Shwa
Summary: Sam and Jules have a sort of discussion concerning the dangers of the job. Oneshot set after A New Life.


_A/N: Hey guys, just a quick oneshot I wrote up during class because I was not as impressed with A New Life as most Sam/Jules fans were. Basically just the aftermath with Jules being nearly shot yet again (third time by my count). I'm working on the next update for Just-World, but I have a job plus 2 school projects due next week, plus it's massive. So I'm aiming for next weekend. _

Patchwork Communication

Shadows crawl around in his extra room. Consuming the ash stained walls, dimming the darkened, soon to be empty, space. The door is cracked slightly and two cardboard boxes, lids with distended tongues, sit at the foot of his guest bed. Nat's in the process of moving out. She found a nice apartment, affordable, close to where she works. The deal went through last night, she's out celebrating with 'a friend'.

Gasping echoes of jingling keys in the front door. The familiar pop of the lock disengaging. The door shudders open. Jules is on the other side, juggling a bulky brown bag in her arms.

"Hey." Her grin half-hidden by the red dragon scrawled on the bag, which is veiled in a jungle of dark grease splotches. She hikes the bag up with a well placed knee jab and doesn't give him shit for not moving his ass off the couch. In a well balanced movement that's effortlessly artistic, she relinquishes her keys, shuts the door and resets all the locks. "Sorry I took so long, there was a huge lineup at the restaurant."

The bag crinkles on the counter, brown paper crumpling under the pressure. Adept fingers pull at her coat buttons with the motion of a needle leading thread. She glances up, eyes concealed under an overgrowth of bangs. "I brought enough for Natalie."

"She's not here," he almost grumbles, watches her actions through the sleek, black reflection on the blank TV screen. In the periphery, the ghost of a guest room lingers.

"Hey." Her hand, cold from outside, slides across the back of his neck. Fingertips patter like freezing rain against his bare skin. "Are you okay?"

He sighs; it collects as a guttural clog in this throat. His palms drill into the couch cushions and he propels away from her, away from calming adoration of hands, to stand alone in the middle of the living room. "I'm fine."

"Okay." Voice void of emotion, tending to the package of oozing Chinese food on the counter. She's not hesitant to answer. Not bitchy in her response. They both know what this is about, it's happened enough.

He's tried not to mull, but the thoughts plague him. Jam his brain like a swarm of insects. Like a virus. Every time his eyes close, the man materializes behind her, crosshairs trained. Every second time his eyes close, the gunshot rips through her chest and pings off the rooftop. The designs, the memories, the near outcomes too similar to ignore.

Crackling. Crinkling. Static silence. A refusal to talk about work at home and home at work. It's a new rule: keep the office out of the bedroom. It's a stupid rule because he knows that Jules is the reason he received a semi-promotion to Co-Team Leader. The benefits of unwinding at the end of the day, even if it's with leaky Chinese food, talking about what happened establishes a sense of normalcy. A sense of intimacy. A sense of not needing to go visit a complete stranger three times a week to discuss things they've never experienced.

He shatters the silence. He always does. One day, probably soon, something is going to happen and he'll blame himself into a guilt dug grave if talking about it would have prevented it.

"Jules, it could have happened again."

"Sam," his name is a breathy sigh on her lips. She rolls her eyes and folds down the top of the takeout bag.

"I was the Team Leader. I should have done something—"

"I'm not new at this. Sometimes there's nothing—"

"You shouldn't have been out there alone."

She stops. Stops everything. Stops the dishes. Stops the food. Stops the debate. Stops her feather-light footing over the iridescent kitchen tiles. Under her bangs, eyebrows lock into place like the safety on a gun. "Excuse me?"

"Jules," he sighs, really sighs this time. In a time when he should be retreating, searching for cover, he surrenders himself from behind the couch. A steady approach is set to the kitchen. His feet aren't so noiseless against the tiles. "That's not what I meant."

"I thought we were done with this, Sam." Relocated dishes from the upper cabinets crash and burn into counter. He can't hear fractures in the impact; they wouldn't be the first plate casualties to result from his relationship with Jules. "I really did."

His lips roll into each other and he shakes his head. "It's not going to go away."

"Everything's fine. I'm okay." Hands fly up and down the length of her body to showcase its adequateness.

"You could have been shot. What if Spike and I were thirty seconds late?"

Sideways. Back almost to him and the nerve resurfacing. Her ponytail curls against the back of her neck, eyes hidden behind fanned lashes, behind heavy eyebrows, behind bangs. "I wasn't. You weren't."

"What about the time that you were?"

"Sam—"

A tentative step sounds like he's crushing glass. Unconsciously, his index finger squeezes air because he blinks for too long and he recalls the man from earlier. Remembers the weight of the rifle in his hand, the battle for composure in order to shoot but the worry he might be too late. "I couldn't help you that time. What if this time was just a fluke?"

Tin ridges bend away from cardboard lids. The container groans, bored with their trivial arguments. Rice, peas, chicken. "And what if it was a mulligan? Like a do over?"

"Jules I can't—"

"And we can't live this way. Just waiting until one of us gets shot or blown up or. Or. Or—"

She's stuck on repeat, hands pseudo trembling against the next food container whether from hunger or anger or realization. Icicle fingers end up buried in his hand, and his arms wrap around her. "Okay. Okay."

The rise and fall of her chest regulates against his, from marathon overexerted to almost comatose. His hands seize the small of her back and just under her ponytail that tickles at the sides of his fingers. Holding her in his kitchen like they're waiting for a detonation. Thoughts pervert. Mutate to how cold her body was on that rooftop while the blood poured out of her like a soda fountain. How her body turned a disgusting shade of white and her eyelids drifted shut. He shouted to her to stay awake, to talk to him. He still has to yell to get her to talk.

"What are we supposed to do, Jules?" A whisper lost in a sea of internal monologue and psychosis stemmed concerns. There's no simple answer, not like their sordid love affair being discovered. The opportunity to switch teams lurks in the shadows, but danger is omnipresent. "Just be fine with each other being injured?"

The embrace fragments. The conversation becomes the second subject to the Chinese food which sits in a pile of its own brown-colored vomit on the counter. Saturinity and a wrung out wash cloth. Censorship and the sibilant hiss of the kitchen faucet. Dead air and napkins placed under sibling containers.

Finally their communication receives its first patch stitched into place by a mild observation and air of pessimism. "It's part of the job, Sam. We're just going to be okay with it."

"I'll never be okay with it."


End file.
